[Effect of anti-mouse brain serum on the CFUc in actively proliferating bone marrow]

With hydroxyurea injected to donor mice a greater inhibition of splenic colony growth occurred after incubation of a bone marrow suspension with the rabbit antimouse brain serum (RAMBS), and restoration of the colony-formation by thymocytes was less pronounced than in normal bone marrow treated with the antibrain serum. The incubation of the bone marrow cells containing CFUc, which actively proliferate after irradiation or stimulation by vinblastine, with the antibrain serum sharply suppressed the splenic colony growth. In this case however, in contrast to normal bone marrow, the administration of thymocytes failed to exert a favourable action on the colony formation. It is suggested that functioning of accessory cells is not associated with the defined cell cycle stage of CFUc and that, in addition to the previously discovered accessory cell population, some other factors, inactivated by the RAMBS serum, are present in the bone marrow the analogue of which is absent in the thymus.